For me it is when companies/services market themselves as donating to XYZ cause if I buy their product. If they want to donate, they should have already done that with the money they have. Asking me to give them profit so that they can donate is so obviously pretentious.
For me it’s branding something as “AI” as a buzzword. Almost all product marketing is full of AI hype these days.
Honestly, I’m fine with them putting the AI sticker on everything. What I have a problem with is if by AI they mean they scrape any and all data they can get their grubby little hands on.
I dislike ads that don’t indicate the functional benefits of the product and instead nake it about the product being aspirational or about my worth.
The “You’re worth getting some deliciousness” for a chocolate bar would be an example.
I’d rather know if the chocolate was ethical, the price, and sweetness level.
Billboards
All of them.
Right? Like…”which parts about being manipulated in order to take the money from you that you didn’t even want to have to rely on in a system that doesn’t make sense and actively hates you and uses you and then chews you up and spits you out do you not like?”
All of them.
The job of sales is the overpromise and write checks that their ass won’t have to personally cash. Anything they say is to get you to sign on the line.
Fuck em all
Drive-by advertising. When someone joins a forum I’m active on just to let us know about their shiny new product and doesn’t participate in any other way. Even if it’s relevant, it’s still pretty scummy.
Has to be rubbishing the competition. Even if I’ve solicited the engagement, if you have to pull yourself up by putting your competitors down then you’ll lose me. Tell me why you are good, not why they are bad.
To me it’s sending me e-mails I have not explicitly signed up for. I have had once or twice, when I had filled out a form to order something and without pressing submit, they had already registered my e-mail address and signed me up for all kinds of spam, starting with ‘weren’t you about to order something’.
That’s very illegal in the UK and EU, oh my.
GDPR. Honestly, one of the greatest laws ever passed by anyone, anywhere. No hyperbole, it’s so simple and pro-dignity. It also offers a simple litmus test: if you oppose GDPR, I oppose you.
Yep this was Canal Digital in the Netherlands. I sent them an e-mail that they should really stop doing this or I would mention it to the AP (Dutch privacy guard dog).
I mentioned it to the AP regardless.
The ones that say re: your order
Aheeem excuse me buddy, where the hell do you think you’re going? You left some ITEMS in your CART. You get back here right now and complete your purchase. Don’t make me tell you twice!
But sometimes there’s a good coupon in that email. The weed companies are good at that!
This is Grubhub and all those other apps when I get a craving at home and don’t want to drive or can’t drive because I’m not sober. I browse through and see some stuff that looks decent and get all the way to the end to find out that my $10 worth of food is now going to be $25 plus tip to be delivered to me. So I just close the app and then get one of those stupid notifications “hey you still have stuff in your cart! Come back and finish your order”.
No, fuck you.
Especially when they sign me up for a bunch of different emails lists I need to unsubscribe from each one individually and eventually just spam everything from them. Then they sell my email.
Use a different email alias for each site. Duckduckgo with their duck.com, or Apple’s Hide My Email makes that easy; let your password manager keep track of the alias. If they start to spam me, I know not to use that site again, and I can delete the alias so that the spam goes into a black hole.
I use my pets names. They frequently get special invitations for credit cards.
I’ve started signing them all up for each other’s mailing lists.
You sound like someone who would enjoy that adblocker that clicks on every ad in the background.
Edit: called adnauseam.io
The thing is, if I want something I’ll go looking for it. At the point where I’m looking for it or something like it, I am happy to consume ads even tangentially related to that thing. If analytics marketing worked this way (showing me relevant ads when I’m shopping for something, even if it’s for something I am not actively looking for), things would be better. But ads have worked their way into the cracks of everything and that’s my problem with them.
I hate Billboards. I don’t like circulars (waste of paper and generally too much trash), I hate junk mail and I think it’s predatory. Popups (singing, flashing, scrolling when I scroll to stay on the page, tiny exit buttons, video, etc) are garbage.
I hate Billboards.
I don’t just hate them, but I’d straight up make them illegal. At least next to roads. They are specifically meant to get the attention of drivers. How can that be allowed?
I think Washington state has outlawed them except for things like safety signs and I think that’s great.
This is from like 15 years ago, so maybe it’s not true anymore.
I am okay with some billboards that advertise services that are relevant to motorists, such as fuel, food or lodging near the road.
If we used billboards for something like missing children or traffic announcements etc I’d be okay with that. But pretty much no actual ads for products. Billboards are a driving distraction and I don’t approve.
@flyingsquid - this is your chance to shine!
All of them except one that I call the Bill Hicks Gambit
Honestly, sometimes when I can’t sleep, watching eSports helps (especially Starcraft II). IDK why, but put on a super chill caster like Wardii and I’m out in 20 minutes.
Having some loud, disruptive ad punch through my ad blocker and try to tell me about Liberty Mutual when I’ve almost dozed off is close to the most rage inducing experience imaginable. With Youtube now working to inject adds directly into video streams, I’m actually anxious about the future of my best sleep aid.
Everything has deceptive language and other types of manipulation. I used to merchandise and learned a lot. Most ads make me angry because of this. Politics is similar but that just makes me sad.
Sending my work email a calendar invite as the first communication. Just because you want to sell it doesn’t mean I want to buy it. Or even hear about it. If a calendar event is the first thing you send me, I will be the avatar of snark. My calendar is busy enough without you inserting yourself into it without my consent.
Double snark if you get upset that I didn’t accept it and reach out to find out why.
